


tick tock

by Jacks8n



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, jack is pov, sep era to swiss base explosion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 19:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11364093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacks8n/pseuds/Jacks8n
Summary: They are going to die.





	tick tock

It nails him as they sit beside each other in the truck. Jack rocks back in his seat, feeling as though he has come out of a stupor. His senses sharpen, almost painfully, to the world around him.The glowing red overhead lights feel more vivid than blood. His gloves pinch, the felt on his skin soft and coarse at the same time. Gabriel’s breaths, warm and even beside him, feel as though they are in his ear.

They are going to die.

So many of their plans involve _maybe_ dying. It’s always spoken of as something that _could_ happen. Shrapnel could pierce through one of the softer points in the armour and lodge itself into organ and bone. Cover could be just a few too many meters out of reach. Air support could be late to the extraction. But never as an absolute. Never a certainty.

They are going to die.

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. They could. But they probably won’t. But they will. Eventually.

Jack wonders how he’s gone so long without _feeling_ it. Without feeling the awesome, catastrophic realization that it is all going to stop. For him.

And for Gabriel.

Maybe it’s the military lifestyle. Dodging death for a living makes arrogant spectres of earthy beings. Come back from enough bullets and missing them doesn’t seem so fundamentally crucial anymore.

The mission goes as planned. A lot of things could have happened, but they don’t. Jack and Gabriel go home.

It haunts him. From that moment onwards, the seconds left walk alongside Jack like a silent companion, neither cruel nor kind. They follow him, and Jack sucks in his breath whenever he fears there aren’t many left.

Sometimes, the feeling is pushed so far back in his mind that the shotgun pointed at his neck seems trivial. Other times, he feels as though his feet are tied to anchors. His chest aches, and dread swells in his gut.

Gabriel is in the hospital. Jack sits beside him. Lucky to be alive, the doctors say. Shouldn’t be, they continue. Enhancements, they conclude.

Gabriel isn’t conscious to see Jack cry, but he is the next day when the open window lets in the smell of springtime rain. Jack doesn’t think he’s ever been more grateful for anything in his life.

It’s a crack operation that has them squeezing through the tight hallways of the omnium. Jack is certain it won’t work. He’s still here, though. He wonders what that says about him.

He’s on the ground with a dislocated knee. Movement makes him scream, makes his vision flash black. Amari terminates the OR14 on top of him. Wilhelm carries him out. Gabriel hides the panic in his eyes well enough that none of the others pick up on it. Jack apologizes once they’re alone in the back of the ship, an icepack on his knee, pain meds in his system, and Gabriel trying not to hover. He’ll be more careful next time.

He’s beautiful like this. Brow furrowed just a little, leaning over the table with one hand on his chin. Muttering to himself, shoving pieces around in his head. Experimenting and discarding what he knows won’t work. Considering what might. Intimately familiar with what everyone can do, what they can’t, and what they can do _well._ He looks at the schematics and picks out details Jack couldn’t have discovered given years of time to sit and ponder.

In the end, it isn’t guns or bombs that end the war, but Gabriel Reyes. Jack trusts him more than he trusts anyone. 

He’s been promoted to Strike Commander.

He knows it’s what’s best. He knows Gabriel can do more in Blackwatch. It still stings of an unfairness that makes his blood boil and his heart stutter. He’s caught between defensiveness and an awful sickness. It feels _wrong._

Gabriel wishes him luck before he goes out in front of the cameras. Jack leans into the kiss. Gabriel’s hand is soft as dawn on his cheek, and then he is gone. Jack smiles and knows he has made a mistake.

They don’t see each other enough. The seconds sit in the corner of the ceiling, watching Jack fold into himself on the floor below, hands clutching his stomach. Blood pounds in his ears and his eyes water. The laminate is cold and untouched by the summer outside. The phone rings. Jack gets up and answers. It isn’t an emergency.

On the tarmac. I missed you, he says. Gabriel is pressed against him as tight as Jack can manage but it still feels too far. He kisses the top of Gabriel’s head. I love you, he reminds. Gabriel is hugging back just as warmly. Thank you for coming home safe.

They’ll stay for a couple years, just long enough to transition to a peacetime team. When Fareeha starts school, they’ll all retire and move somewhere quiet. Jack’s only waiting until the mission in Seattle is over. As soon as they find someone to replace him, he’s out. Once Jesse’s done enough for the UN to overlook his record, they’ll leave and take him with them. As soon as the business with the Shimada’s is over, then they can go. After they get to the bottom of what happened with Lacroix, then they will be gone. Null Sector is the last mission they’ll ever work. With the hearings coming up, it’s best if they just step aside. Jack feels as though he has lost control, so many years have passed in a wisp, he can’t remember the last time panic didn’t claw at him through sleepless nights— 

Ana Amari is dead.

Jack stands in the ship feeling utterly and completely void of emotion. He rocks back on his heels. He thinks of Fareeha and all at once the walls collapse in on him, pressurizing him to dust.

Gabriel has him pinned against the wall. He’s practically snarling. Why didn’t you _do_ something, he demands. He’s crying. And then with a shove, the space between them splits apart as though it were cracking ice. Jack is adrift, and Gabriel is adrift, and for the first time, they are not adrift together.

Morrison.

Reyes.

Jack feels as though he is sinking in black tar. The irrevocable brokenness shatters him. There isn’t enough time. There’s too much time. He can’t bear this any longer; he never wanted any of this.

It’s a bloodbath. The media crawls like flies on a corpse at the UN hearings. They call for his head. They demand to know why Blackwatch was kept hidden. Why Overwatch thought it could violate sovereignty. Who the hell Jack thinks he is. (He doesn’t know.)

Gabriel’s always there, but he doesn’t speak to Jack. Doesn’t acknowledge him. Whenever the day is over, they leave in different cars for different places to have different assistants whip them through the new leaks and damning articles.

Gabriel is in his office. Jack wants to laugh at the terrible irony that work is what drove them apart in the first place, but now it’s all that keeps them from never seeing each other again. Their lives are still woven together tightly enough they may as well be one tapestry. Jack can feel the edges coming undone, though. Sometimes he picks at them, pulling out the individual threads with prideful malice. Other times he holds them in place, desperate not to lose the only thing he thinks he can genuinely say he cares about.

Gabriel passes over the file. Infiltration, he says. Talon. A shadow passes over the room, and they share one of their rare moments of understanding. Back in the SEP, they were unexpected treasures. Moments of compatibility that Jack had marvelled at and felt incredibly lucky to experience. During the Strike Team days, they were a constant. Expected. Reliable and a deeper comfort than anything else could ever be. And then they had started to dwindle. Hampered by long missions apart, timezones, and the running of a worldwide bureaucracy on two different fronts. 

Jack wonders when their last good day had been.

Do you know who, he asks. Gabriel doesn’t. He’s leaning over the table, and for the first time in a long time they are close enough to touch. Jack realizes he isn’t looking at the file a moment before Gabriel does.

And there they stand, eyes locked, neither willing to move closer or further away.

Gabriel’s eyes are as warm as they have ever been. Warm and _there,_ but so far away. With a pang strong enough to wind Jack, he realizes that Gabriel is becoming a stranger.

He doesn’t even know what Gabriel’s bedroom looks like. Does he still run laps when he’s frustrated? Is the stuffed rabbit from his little sister still on his desk? Does Gabriel know where Jesse’s gone? How is he sleeping these days? Is he doing physio for the bad shoulder?

Jack should have done more. He should be doing more. He doesn’t want to lose Gabriel. More than anyone else, he loves the man in front of him, and he always has. _Always._

“I missed you,” says Jack.

Gabriel’s eyes soften. He sighs like a weariness that has clung to his bones is spilling out from him. Gabriel opens his mouth to speak and—

The floor opens up beneath them.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to wincerind for beta-ing this! im owe you my life


End file.
